The ALL-New Palmer Divide Raceway!!! Updated 02-01-2019

[RichD]

You can up the average speed of your jam car if you put masking tape in the braking zones.

[dreinecke]

[dreinecke]

Ever leave the power on to your track all night? I have several times. So, I just installed 50' of blue, LED rope lighting under the track. Not only can I now see in my boxes under the table, but it is plugged into the same plug bar as the power. It'll be a little hard to miss this now...

[arroldn]

Wow what a man cave.



Arrold

[mattb]

I do always wire a small 12 vt dc light into my power supply. That keeps me from leaving the track on when I'm not there.

Guys I do something similiar with my soldering iron. After leaving one on many years ago and burning it up and thinking of how an accident can happen, I bought a few bucks worth of stuff at the hardware store to make a timer. I have a wind up timer for up to 60 minutes plugged into an outlet and my iron is plugged into the timer. I wind it up to 10-5 minutes to solder. If I walk away and leave it on it shuts off after a few minutes. I'll put up a picture later today.

Dave, that's really coming along nicely. I believe you can easily run two 1/24 cars!

[chappy]

That sir is very cool. Talk about atmosphere. Well done David.
Bob

[dreinecke]

Managed a little work this weekend.

The timing system is now sorted and working. I would have liked to not used the light gantry but this area of the basement is just too dark to get away with that. It works very well!

I painted the outer track lines using 1/4" green tape to run the lines. I still freehand everything as nothing on a real track is perfectly straight. I subscribe to the "looks good enough" method of scenery.

Next up was the wall at the end of the straight (Turn 9). Simple latice work plastic from Home Depot that I scribed, masked for the blue paint and ran some grime wash over when it was all done. Secured it to the fascia board with some Powergrab from a tube.

I got about 1/3 of the track fascia board covered with the plaster cloth before running out. I use this method to give some scenic opportunity, break up straight lines, and keep the cars on the track. Once that dried, I threw some of my turf paint at it really quick just to get rid of the snow storm effect. This is almost June for crying out loud!

I added some of my re-cycled fencing and Scalextric ARMCO as well where needed. I still haven't quite decided on the pit structures or any for that matter, but I've got time to think about it before I do my normal "I'll just throw that here...".

I also started playing with the pink foam I'm going to use for the scenic areas on the climb as well as in the middle. Easy to shape and should cover with the plaster cloth when I'm done sculpting it. I've got several (4) of the new grandstands from Magnetic Racing on order. I blame Chappy on that. Those things are gorgeous!!! Three of them will sit on the foam through the esses. Should be exciting spectating right there.

Lots still to do, but my good friend Chris W. is coming over to race today and then I'm going to the Def Leppard concert tonight with my sister, daughter and step mom. Meaning - I won't be able to hear a freaking thing tomorrow!!!!

[Mebrown]

Looks great!

(My phone wouldn't show the pictures before my original comment.)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[eightwheels]

Looks like it is taking shape, Watching the pink foam effect for serene, Like the blue light effect and is a good thing to let you know that the power is still on. Will be a good track to run the final round on.

[GASSERMAN]

That's beautiful Dave. Keep up the nice work. Bob................

[Broman62]

Coming along nicely Doc...that lighting is freaky cool!!! Layouts are usually never ending labors of love!!!!

"I subscribe to the "looks good enough" method of scenery."...great quote!!!!

[Audi1]

That's a really nice track! The under-track lighting is cool.

Allan

[dreinecke]

Thanks guys! I was able to do a little more work tonight...I'm finding it hard to stop running cars!

I built all four of my Magnetic Racing Grandstands - these are simply fabulous. Fun to build and they look so great to boot!

I also managed to put plaster cloth over the outer climb to Turn 5. It is pretty barren at the moment, but with turf and people it will start to come alive.

Oh! And a fence. Some safety nut just came by and said that needs to be in place before we can host spectators in the stands...

[Rleog]

There are lots of things to learn from your build and it's amazing that you brought it to this point so quickly. I particularly like the earth berm effect that you achieved by using pink foam insulation and plaster cloth.

Great layout. Thanks for the descriptions.

[dreinecke]

Rleog - thanks. If it helps others do it - so much the better.

I've not used the pink foam before and actually am not doing what I'd originally planned - I was going to carve the cut areas and wash it - but really decided I didn't want cliffs. I like the way some tracks cut into hills for the course, so that is when the plaster cloth came out to go over it.

Looking forward to getting some turf down!